Trivia / Billy Bathgate

• Billing Displacement: Loren Dean is billed fourth despite playing the title character.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $48 million. Box office, $15,565,363.
• Dawson Casting: Billy is supposed to be about 15 years old. Actor Loren Dean was 21 at the time of filming.
  • Dutch Schultz was 34 when he died, Dustin Hoffmann was 43-44 years old in the film.
• Disowned Adaptation: E.L. Doctorow distanced himself from the film due to the extensive liberties it took with the novel it was based on.
• Troubled Production: Reports constantly streamed from the set of protracted arguments between star Dustin Hoffman and director Robert Benton, similar to those Hoffman had engaged in with Sydney Pollack during Tootsie a decade earlier, without the ingenious resolution. Instead, Jeffrey Katzenberg himself had to come on set and intervene. The disputes led to delays and reshoots, including an entire alternate ending that was then entirely discarded in favor of the original ending, as the cost ballooned to $40 million (extravagant for a Depression-era gangster movie at the time). After production was finished, Doctorow as mentioned above distanced himself from the film since it took considerable liberties with his novel. It ended up being released to lukewarm reviews.